MADISON – Before the end of the 2020-2021 school year, fifth-grade students at Mill Creek Elementary School braved one of math’s age-old challenges – the ‘written problem’ — in the Noetic Learning Math Contest.

Noetic Learning presents a semiannual problem-solving contest in mathematics for elementary and middle school students. The contest is designed to promote students’ problem-solving skills and math interest.

Several Mill Creek students received top honors. Mason Davis was named to the National Honor Roll, which spotlights students in the top 10 percent of the contest. In addition, Davis achieved the rank of overall team winner.

Mill Creek students who received National Honorable Mention by reaching the top 50 percent were Owen Davenport, Dylan Ngyuen, Hudson Tittsworths, Lucy Dyess, Keelie Boogan, Garison Fields, Porter Jobes, Zoe Milly, Cole Pieratt, Soham Satyal, Jakob Wright, Kayden Glanzer and Gavin Perkins.

In the competition, students must solve 20 problems independently within 45 minutes. This year, more than 23,200 students participated in the contest, despite challenges of the pandemic.

In a weekly update in May, Dr. Ed Nichols, Superintendent of Madison City Schools, congratulated the Mill Creek fifth-graders for their diligence in math study as shown by the fine results in Noetic’s contest.

The following ‘written problem’ shows the type of calculations that students had to complete: “Three sisters are sharing a jar of cookies. Mary took half of the cookies plus 1 more. Nancy took half of what was left plus 1 more. Pam got the remaining 3 cookies. How many cookies were in the jar originally?”

The contest targets students in grades 2-8. Noetic encourages teachers in public and private schools to register their students for the Noetic competition.

In the contest, the “National Honor Roll Medal” represents the top 10 percent of all participants in each grade. These contestants will receive “National Honor Roll” medals.

Each team’s highest scorer will receive a “Team Winner” medal. The “Team Achievement Plaque” goes to the top 10 percent of teams, excluding after-school institution teams and homeschool teams.

Noetic Learning LLC was founded in 2007 by Li Kelty. The company is based in Overland Park, Kansas. Their mission is to improve math education with an online learning environment for students to practice and pursue math concepts.

For more information, email info@noetic-learning.com or visit noetic-learning.com/mathcontest.